Nothing Gained Quotes & Sayings

Provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all. — Jane Austen

It was a vast emptiness vastly filled, a nothing that found room for everything -- room for grass, trees, shadowy distant hills, and far above them snow-peaks like a row of angular clouds riding the blue sky . I had lost a head and gained a world. — Douglas Harding

Nothing could be gained by worrying and dreading the future, borrowing tomorrow's pain for today. — Karen Kingsbury

The aim to which I have aspired for so many years, my nightly dream, the object of my prayers in heaven, Security- I have gained it. It is God's will. I must do nothing contrary to the will of God. And why is it God's will? That I may carry on what I have begun, that I may do good, that I may be one day a grand and encouraging example, that it may be said that there was finally some little happiness resulting from this suffering which I have undergone and this virtue to which I have returned! It is decided, let the matter alone! Let us not interfere with God! — Victor Hugo

Learning to say prayers in a foreign language ... is not in itself the way to fulfill our highest human potential; there is nothing of transcending value to be gained from substituting one set of cultural conventions for another. People whose practice remains on this superficial level end up with nothing but confusion, not knowing who they are or what they should do. — Thubten Yeshe

A God out there and values out there, if they existed, would be utterly useless and unintelligible to us. There is nothing to be gained by nostalgia for the old objectivism, which was in any case used only to justify arrogance, tyranny, and cruelty. People [forget] ... how utterly hateful the old pre-humanitarianism world was. — Don Cupitt

It's the old adage, 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained, ... While this is unique, we consider ourselves unique. — Gavin Newsom

There are few problems in the world that economic prosperity
cannot help solve. Yet the engines of that prosperity are under fierce
attack. The forces that seek power over others have gained the upper
hand against those that seek freedom. By harming wealth creation,
they cause even more strain on society. Historically, this is nothing
new. State domination over its subjects has roots that connect statism,
totalitarianism, communism, and socialism to more modern-day variants
of liberalism and progressivism. It is a constant fight and we must
win. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

How to get the best of it all? One must conquer, achieve, get to the top; one must know the end to be convinced that one can win the end - to know there's no dream that mustn't be dared ... Is this the summit, crowning the day? How cool and quiet! We're not exultant; but delighted, joyful; soberly astonished ... Have we vanquished an enemy? None but ourselves. Have we gained success? That word means nothing here. Have we won a kingdom? No ... and yes. We have achieved an ultimate satisfaction ... fulfilled a destiny ... To struggle and to understand - never this last without the other; such is the law ... — George Mallory

Realization is our true nature. It is nothing new to be gained. What is new cannot be eternal. Therefore there is no need to be doubting whether we would gain or lose the self. — Ramana Maharshi

But Pierre had been born with a shrewdness that made him early aware that a failure to believe that human events were ordered by a higher power was regarded by many in the highest positions as obnoxious and even sinful, and as nothing was to be gained by exciting such hostility, it was better to give a silent or even smiling assent to the fatuous idealism to which, particularly in youth, one was so relentlessly exposed. — Louis Auchincloss

Because the global ecosystem is a connected whole, in which nothing can be gained or lost and which is not subject to over-all improvement, anything extracted from it by human effort must be replaced. Payment of this price cannot be avoided; it can only be delayed. The present environmental crisis is a warning that we have delayed nearly too long. — Barry Commoner

Decadence, decadence, he said to himself. They've lost everything and gained nothing. The French had merely daubed on the finishing touches at the end of a process which had begun five hundred years ago, at least. Their intuitive moral desires coincided with the ideals embodied in the formulas of their religion, yet they could live in accordance neither with those deepest impulses nor with the precepts of the religion, because society came in between with all the pressure of its tradition. No one could afford to be honest or generous or merciful because every one of them distrusted all the others; often they had more confidence in a Christian they were meeting for the first time than in a Moslem they had known for years. — Paul Bowles

There was nothing to be gained by losing his temper. There was never anything to be gained by that. — Joe Abercrombie

Did men ever look in the mirror, I wondered, and find themselves wanting in deeply fundamental ways? When they opened a newspaper or watched a film, were they presented with nothing but exceptionally handsome young men, and did this make them feel intimidated, inferior, because they were not as young, not as handsome? Did they then read newspaper articles ridiculing those same handsome men if they gained weight or wore something unflattering? — Gail Honeyman

Never an illness, nor the absence
of grandeur, no,
nothing is able to kill the best in us,
that kindness, dear sir, we are afflicted with:
beautiful is the flower of man, his conduct,
and every door opens on the beautiful truth
and never hides treacherous whispers.
I always gained something from making myself better,
better than I am, better than I was,
that most subtle citation:
to recover some lost petal
of the sadness I inherited:
to search once more for the light that sings
inside of me, the unwavering light. — Pablo Neruda

Nothing will ever be gained for nothing. If we labour, we shall have our own opinion as well. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Well done, my fine fellow out of my womb. What have you gained? Nothing! And oh, what have you lost? Everything! — Jeanette Winterson

Conservatives ... may decide to join the game and seek activist judges with conservative views. Should that come to pass, those who have tempted the courts to political judging will have gained nothing for themselves but will have destroyed a great and essential institution ... There are only two sides. Either the Constitution and statutes are law, which means their principles are known and control judges, or they are malleable texts that judges may rewrite to see that particular groups or political causes win. — Robert Bork

He glanced over at Luthar, sneering down into his bowl as though it was full of piss. No respect. He glanced over at Ferro, staring yellow knives at him through narrowed eyes. No trust. He shook his head sadly. Without trust and respect the group would fall apart in a fight like walls without mortar.
Still, Logen had won over tougher audiences, in his time. Threetrees, Tul Duru, Black Dow, Harding Grim, he'd fought each one in single combat, and beaten them all. Spared each man's life, and left him bound to follow. Each one had tried their best to kill him, and with good reasons too, but in the end Logen had earned their trust, and their respect, and their friendship even. Small gestures and a lot of time, that was how he'd done it. 'Patience is the chief of virtues,' his father used to say, and 'you won't cross the mountains in a day.' Time might be against them, but there was nothing to be gained by rushing. You have to be realistic about these things. — Joe Abercrombie

My body, thus, and all my good besides, And all my merits gained and to be gained, I give them all away withholding nothing To bring about the benefit of beings. — Shantideva

All he'd ever wanted was for nothing to change. Or for things to change only in the right ways, improving little by little, day by day, forever. It sounded crazy when you said it like that, but that was what baseball had promised him, what Westish College had promised him, what Schwartzy had promised him. The dream of every day the same. Every day was like the day before but a little bit better. You ran the stadium a little faster. You bench-pressed a little more. You hit the ball a little harder in the cage; you watched the tape with Schwartzy afterward and gained a little insight into your swing. Your swing grew a little simpler. Everything grew simpler, little by little. You ate the same food, work up at the same time, wore the same clothes. Hitches, bad habits, useless thoughts
whatever you didn't need slowly fell away. Whatever was simple and useful remained. You improved little by little til the day it all became perfect and stayed that way. Forever. — Chad Harbach

I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;* but if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing. — Anonymous

I was an utterance in absentia. I was a forgotten word, uttered and mislaid long ago. I was the word that existed because there was another word that was my opposite, and without it I was nothing. I gained meaning only by acknowledging that possible other.
Nida — Faiqa Mansab

The heart of the problem, I soon came to understand, was that with Pablo there must always be a victor and a vanquished. I could not be satisfied with being a victor, nor, I think, could anyone who is emotionally mature. There was nothing gained by being vanquished either, because with Pablo, the moment you were vanquished he lost all interest. Since I loved him, I couldn't afford to be vanquished. What does one do in a dilemma like that? — Francoise Gilot

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, sometimes you've got to go against the grain. — Garth Brooks

Heaven's wheel gained nothing from my coming,
Nor did my going augment its dignity;
Nor did my ears hear from anyone
Why I had come and why I went.
He began my creation with constraint,
By giving me life he added only confusion;
We depart reluctantly still not knowing
The aim of birth, existence, departure. — Omar Khayyam

In consequence of Darwin's reformed Theory of Descent, we are now in a position to establish scientifically the groundwork of a non-miraculous history of the development of the human race ... If any person feels the necessity of conceiving the coming into existence of this matter as the work of a supernatural creative power, of the creative force of something outside of matter, we have nothing to say against it. But we must remark, that thereby not even the smallest advantage is gained for a scientific knowledge of nature. Such a conception of an immaterial force, which as the first creates matter, is an article of faith which has nothing whatever to do with human science. — Ernst Haeckel

patience is the chief of virtues," his father used to say, and "you won't cross the mountains in a day." Time might be against them, but there was nothing to be gained by rushing. — Joe Abercrombie

Nella vita: chi non risica, non rosica," he said finally, his voice quiet. "In life: nothing ventured, nothing gained. My mom used to tell us that. It's been a long time, but I can still hear her saying it. — J.M. Darhower

For what was your gesture? An act of pure love for Jesus particularly. It was an act so completely focused upon the Christ that not a dram of worldly benefit was gained thereby. Nothing could justify the spillage of some three hundred days' wages, except love alone. [ ... ] The disciples, in fact, were offended by an act that produced nothing, accomplished nothing, fed no poor, served no need. They reproached you as a wastrel. They were offended by the absurd, an act devoted absolutely to love, to love alone. But Jesus called it 'beautiful. — Walter Wangerin Jr.

For who that noght dar undertake,
Be riht he schal no profit take
[For who that dare not undertake,
By right he shall no profit take.
i.e., Nothing ventured, nothing gained.] — John Gower

If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained. — Neil Gaiman

Nothing is gained except by sacrifice ... Do not degrade it to the level of the brutes ... Make yourselves decent men! ... Be chaste and pure! ... There is no other way. Did Christ find any other way? — Swami Vivekananda

In dealing with objections, as with differences of opinion, nothing is gained by confrontation, though much is to be gained by appreciation of the other's viewpoint. Most objections you hear are best handled by first demonstrating your understanding of the other's viewpoint. Always start your response with 'I understand' or 'I can appreciate your position' or 'I see your point' or 'of course' followed by 'However' or 'Also consider' or a similar line that puts you back into consideration. — Martin Yate

But what then? What had he really gained by all this trouble? What had he brought back from this long and weary journey?
Nothing, you say? Perhaps so; nothing but a charming woman, who, strange as it may appear, made him the happiest of men!
Truly, would you not for less than that make the tour around the world? — Jules Verne

But saints and angels behold that glory of God which consists in the beauty of His holiness; and it is this sight only that will melt and humble the hearts of men, wean them from the world, draw them to God, and effectually change them. A sight of the awful greatness of God may overpower men's strength, and be more than they can endure; but if the moral beauty of God be hid, the enmity of the heart will remain in its full strength. No love will be enkindled; the will, instead of being effectually gained, will remain inflexible. But the first glimpse of the moral and spiritual glory of God shining into the heart produces all these effects as it were with omnipotent power, which nothing can withstand. — Jonathan Edwards

I hope I number patience among my virtues, but shilly-shallying, when nothing is to be gained by delay, is not a virtue. — Elizabeth Peters

To be informed is to know simply that something is the case. To be enlightened is to know, in addition, what it is all about: why it is the case, what its connections are with other facts, in what respects it is the same, in what respects it is different, and so forth.
This distinction is familiar in terms of the differences between being able to remember something and being able to explain it. If you remember what an author says, you have learned something from reading him. If what he says is true, you have even learned something about the world. But whether it is a fact about the book or a fact about the world that you have learned, you have gained nothing but information if you have exercised only your memory. You have not been enlightened. Enlightenment is achieved only when, in addition to knowing what an author says, you know what he means and why he says it. — Mortimer J. Adler

nothing in the universe comes without a price; that in every instance you received something you wanted, you had to give up something you had, and in every instance you lost something, you gained something you did not have. — Sharath Komarraju

Patience is a virtue, but there comes a moment when you must stop being patient and take the day by the throat and shake it. If it fights back; fine. I'd rather end up bloody at the end of the day, then unhurt with no progress made, no knowledge gained. I'd rather have a no, then nothing. I'd forgotten that about myself. — Laurell K. Hamilton

What if?..
What if I am all to see?
What if life is only this? And Ignorance is bliss?
What if love is only pain? And nothing can be gained by living everyday
And there is no better way?
What then? — Melody Carlson

The two boys stood and looked at each other. There was no amusement and no scorn in Attean's eyes. How very strange, Matt thought. After all the brave deeds he had dreamed of doing to win this boy's respect, he had gained it at last by doing nothing, just by staying here and refusing to leave. — Elizabeth George Speare

After I had been working as a cap maker for three years it began to dawn on me that we girls needed an organization. The men had organized already, and had gained some advantages, but the bosses had lost nothing, as they took it out on us. — Rose Schneiderman

Rostov kept thinking about that brilliant feat of his, which, to his surprise, had gained him the St. George Cross and even given him the reputation of a brave man - and there was something in it that he was unable to understand. "So they're even more afraid than we are!" he thought. "So that's all there is to so-called heroism? And did I really do it for the fatherland? And what harm had he done, with his dimple and his light blue eyes? But how frightened he was! He thought I'd kill him. Why should I kill him? My hand faltered. And they gave me the St. George Cross. I understand nothing, nothing! — Leo Tolstoy

Far be it from me to suggest that geologists should be reckless in their drafts upon the bank of Time; but nothing whatever is gained, and very much is lost, by persistent niggardliness in this direction. — Charles Lapworth

The past is finished. There is nothing to be gained by going over it. Whatever it gave us in the experiences it brought us was something we had to know.
— Rebecca Beard

Life is a beautiful journey, full of joy and pain
You never know when it will end, don't let a moment pass in vain ...
In the whole ruckus of life, nothing had I gained,
I just wanted freedom, no more did I wanted to be chained ... — Mehek Bassi

Ere long intelligence-transmitted without wires-will throb through the earth like a pulse through a living organism. The wonder is that, with the present state of knowledge and the experiences gained, no attempt is being made to disturb the electrostatic or magnetic condition of the earth, and transmit, if nothing else, intelligence. — Nikola Tesla

When we begin to realize,
that any of our personal success,
is all of our successes,
then we are truly ready as a species,
for the next level.
For if I gain, and you do not,
then I have gained nothing,
for gain is nothing if not shared.
For to isolate one's self,
no matter how seemingly enriched,
is to lose the greatest treasure of all,
the ability to share and grow,
from our universal connection. — Tom Althouse

And so you ask a very good question. Why go on? Why even start off on such a path? What is to be gained from embarking on such a journey? Where is the incentive? What is the reason? The reason is ridiculously simple. There is nothing else to do. — Neale Donald Walsch

As we take stock on the morrow of victory, we shall find that nothing of real value to the human race has been destroyed. Our dead heroes will have won immortality. Civilisation will have gained new vitality. Humanity will have entered upon a richer heritage. — Horatio Bottomley

There is nothing to be gained by trying to change reality. I know this. Completely. And yet. And. Yet. — Susan Juby

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. — Manda Collins

Either Christianity is true or it's false. If you bet that it's true, and you believe in God and submit to Him, then if it IS true, you've gained God, heaven, and everything else. If it's false, you've lost nothing, but you've had a good life marked by peace and the illusion that ultimately, everything makes sense. If you bet that Christianity is not true, and it's false, you've lost nothing. But if you bet that it's false, and it turns out to be true, you've lost everything and you get to spend eternity in hell. — Blaise Pascal

Batman can create as many crappy trophies as he wants. They don't change a thing. They're built on lies and sand. And they will fall. Like his whole damn world. It's important for me to stay on mission. No distractions. I'm here to make sure I can follow his moves throughout the city. Not get caught up in his imaginary nostalgia. There's nothing to be gained getting caught up in his gravity. Nothing. — Peter J. Tomasi

True as this is, it is also true that for one who won through there were many who gained nothing, and it was, and is, the sheer weight of numbers of those who failed of this that has made their influence on the modern life as pervasive and controlling as it is. — Ralph Adams Cram

Nothing to be gained by worrying between now and then. — John Green

German economic salvation has been brought about solely through the efforts of the German people and the experience they have gained. Countries abroad have contributed nothing to this. — Adolf Hitler

Hey Chuck....Nothing ventured, nothing gained! — Abha Maryada Banerjee

There's nothing to be gained from passive observance, the simple documenting of conditions, because, at its core, it sets a bad example. Every time something is observed and not fixed, or when one has a chance to give in some way and does not, there is a lie being told, the same lie we all know by heart but which needn't be reiterated. — Dave Eggers

Nothing risque, nothing gained. — Alexander Woollcott

One positive result of past failure is that you surrender the pursuit of perfection and, if you've gained any sense along the way, you replace it with the pursuit of God's redemption. Nothing is more redemptive than faith in God. You learn that failure may be painful, but it's rarely fatal. After coming to grips with the high premium God places on our faith, I refuse to give up a life practice of believing God just because I accidentally swerve off the road a few times in my faith journey. Hebrews 11:6 says faith is what pleases God, not perfection. — Beth Moore

Always keep Ithaca in your mind. To arrive there is your ultimate goal. But do not hurry the voyage at all. It is better to let it last for many years; and to anchor at the island when you are old, rich with all you have gained on the way, not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches. Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage. Without her you would never have set out on the road. She has nothing more to give you. And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you. Wise as you have become, with so much experience, you must already have understood what Ithacas mean. — Paulo Coelho

If it were true what in the end would be gained Nothing but another truth. Is this such a mighty advantage We have enough old truths still to digest, and even these we would be quite unable to endure if we did not sometimes flavor them with lies. — Georg C. Lichtenberg

Nothing can be gained by extensive study and wide reading. Give them up immediately. — Dogen

You can always look back and see where you might have done something differently, changed this or that. If you can learn something, fine, but never second-guess yourself. It's wasted effort ... Does worrying about it, complaining about it, change it? Nope, it just wastes your time. And if you complain about it to other people, you're also wasting their time. Nothing is gained by wasting all of that time. — John Wooden

Freedom that is not fought for, that is not gained by personal sacrifice is freedom that will never last, because in the heart of the one set free, it will have little value. A treasure that costs nothing is a treasure that is easily neglected and lost. — Bryan Davis

Life is worth living because without life nothing is possible; to choose life is to succeed and appreciate all things that life can give or provide. Life enables one to achieve all that one requires.Life is an opportunity,a privilege and a reward to strive to achieve the unachievable. Life is a blessing from God who provides understanding and knowledge for all life. Yet life is knowledge and understanding. Without life nothing is gained or lost because it is null and void. — David Ssembajjo

The Athenians were one of the most eminently practical people in history, and they made the most practical argument they could with the Melians: When you are weaker, there is nothing to be gained by fighting a useless fight. No one comes to help the weak - by doing so they would only put themselves in jeopardy. The weak are alone and must submit. Fighting gives you nothing to gain but martyrdom, and in the process a lot of people who do not believe in your cause will die. — Robert Greene

Nothing is gained by debate on non-debatable subjects. — Theodore Roosevelt

There is nothing to be gained by waiting for a better situation. You see where you are and you do what you can with that. — Jacob K. Javits

There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all. — Ben Horowitz

If we are all going to have tragedies, if none of us can escape them, then surely we have to learn from them, we have to gain something. And we have to use what we have gained. Those of us who have fought tooth and nail to overcome tragedy are, after all, nothing else, proof that such things can be survived. So we can actually help others survive their tragedies too. As long as they'll let us. — Sarah-Kate Lynch

I don't understand why we must do things in this world, why we must have friends and aspirations, hopes and dreams. Wouldn't it be better to retreat to a faraway corner of the world, where all its noise and complications would be heard no more? Then we could renounce culture and ambitions; we would lose everything and gain nothing; for what is there to be gained from this world? — Emil Cioran

Life moved in circles. Such was the path. What came would come again, breath to breath, until each riddled out the truth within. War was a path to the next, as sure as any, but lies gained nothing. — Chris Galford

I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment. — Gautama Buddha

the best motto to follow is 'Nothing ventured; nothing gained'. — Richard Branson

Daisy said boldly. "Nothing
ventured, nothing gained."
"Yes, but it is a wise man who understands his limits."
"Who said that?" Daisy asked.
"I did," Honoria answered impatiently — Julia Quinn

And even at Christmas, there is nothing to be gained by wishing for what one can't possibly have. — Victoria Alexander

If it is not my portion to meet thee in this life then let me ever feel that I have missed thy sight
let me not forget for a moment, let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours.
As my days pass in the crowded market of this world and my hands grow full with the daily profits, let me ever feel that I have gained nothing
let me not forget for a moment, let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours.
When I sit by the roadside, tired and panting, when I spread my bed low in the dust, let me ever feel that the long journey is still before me
let me not forget a moment, let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours.
When my rooms have been decked out and the flutes sound and the laughter there is loud, let me ever feel that I have not invited thee to my house
let me not forget for a moment, let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours. — Rabindranath Tagore

I try not to be a sucker to our natural tendency to seek pleasure and satisfaction, which causes us to believe almost anything that makes us feel better and then deem it "right." But I cannot exclude the possibility that there may be other dimensions to the world aside from the familiar ones and that something lives on beyond my physical self. If so, when I pass on, it will be a celebration for some other beginning and not an end. Even if that is not the case, I have lost nothing and gained much. — Bernd Heinrich

The truth is, the whole administration under Roosevelt was demoralized by the system of dealing directly with subordinates. It wasobviated in the State Department and the War Department under [Secretary of State Elihu] Root and me [Taft was the Secretary of War], because we simply ignored the interference and went on as we chose ... The subordinates gained nothing by his assumption of authority, but it was not so in the other departments. — William Howard Taft

How can anyone lose who chooses to become a Christian? If, when he dies, there turns out to be no God and his faith was in vain, he has lost nothing ... If, however, there is a God and a heaven and a hell. then he has gained heaven and his skeptical friends have lost everything ... — Blaise Pascal

There's nothing good about being ordinary. People don't respect you for it. People run after people who are different, who have confidence in their own taste, who don't run with the herd. There is nothing gained by giving in to the pressures of group vulgarity. — Erica Jong

Success is a completely abstract thing - it has no bearing on daily life, family matters, the matter of artistic creation, but it can affect grace, and if I lose that, I really have gained nothing from success. — Rachel Kushner

Nothing worthwhile is gained without sacrifice. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Seriously, I think it is a grave fault in life that so much time is wasted in social matters, because it not only takes up time when you might be doing individual private things, but it prevents you storing up the psychic energy that can then be released to create art or whatever it is. It's terrible the way we scotch silence & solitude at every turn, quite suicidal. I can't see how to avoid it, without being very rich or very unpopular, & it does worry me, for time is slipping by , and nothing is done. It isn't as if anything was gained by this social frivolity, It isn't: it's just a waste. — Philip Larkin

There is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war — Thomas More

Not only is a book without conflict something no one wants to read, but a life without conflict is something where nothing is gained, nothing is earned, nothing is won. — A.C. Gaughen

If I speak in the tongues of Reformers and of professional theologians, and I have not personal faith in Christ, my theology is nothing but the noisy beating of a snare drum. And if I have analytic powers and the gift of creating coherent conceptual systems of theology, so as to remove liberal objections, and have not personal hope in God, I am nothing. And if I give myself to resolving the debate between supra and infralapsarianism, and to defending inerrancy, and to learning the Westminster Catechism, yea, even the larger one, so as to recite it by heart backwards and forwards, and have not love, I have gained nothing. — Kevin J. Vanhoozer

If they were there for you when you had nothing, they are the ones worth having now. If they only notice you because of what you have gained, are they worth having at all? — Donna Lynn Hope

These sorrowful musings on my imperfection were nothing compared to the awful realization that I had gained precisely nothing from reading the books of the very best writers; no avenues had opened up, no light gleamed ahead and it had done nothing but depress me. Wormlike, the awful thought began to gnaw at my heart that I should never make a writer. — Mikhail Bulgakov

A knowledge of our ability to consciously radiate health, strength, and harmony will bring us into a realization that there is nothing to fear because we are in touch with Infinite Strength. This knowledge can be gained only by making a practical application of this information. We learn by doing-through practice the athlete becomes powerful. — Charles F. Haanel

The marquis de Carabas was not a good man, and he knew himself well enough to be perfectly certain that he was not a brave man. He had long since decided that the world, Above or Below, was a place that wished to be deceived, and, to this end, he had named himself from a lie in a fairy tale, and created himself
his clothes, his manner, his carriage
as a grand joke.
There was a dull pain in his wrists and his feet, and he was finding it harder and harder to breathe. There was nothing more to be gained by feigning unconsciousness, and he raised his head, as best he could, and spat a gob of scarlet blood into Mr. Vandemar's face.
It was a brave thing to do, he thought. And a stupid one. Perhaps they would have let him die quietly, if he had not done that. Now, he had no doubt, they would hurt him more.
And perhaps his death would come the quicker for it. — Neil Gaiman

Our civic life is heavily marked - indeed, pocked - by debates in which each side is so certain of its position that any movement is effectively impossible. For that matter, debate - in its original sense of "to consider something, to deliberate" - is impossible. We wind up with so much sound and fury and nothing gained. — Leah Hager Cohen

[There is an] immense advantage to be gained by ample space and appropriate surroundings in aiding the formation of a just idea of the beauty and interest of each specimen... Nothing detracts so much from the enjoyment ... from a visit to a museum as the overcrowding of the specimens exhibited. — William Henry Flower

We cannot know what time will do to us with its fine, indistinguishable layers upon layers, we cannot know what it might make of us. It advances stealthily, day by day and hour by hour and step by poisoned step, never drawing attention to its surreptitious labours, so respectful and considerate that it never once gives us a sudden prod or a nasty fright. Every morning, it turns up with its soothing, invariable face and tells us exactly the opposite of what is actually happening: that everything is fine and nothing has changed, that everything is just as it was yesterday
the balance of power
that nothing has been gained and nothing lost, that our face is the same, as is our hair and our shape, that the person who hated us continues to hate us and the person who loved us continues to love us. — Javier Marias

At home the great delight is to see the clover and grass now growing on places that were bare when we came. These small healings of the ground are my model accomplishment-everything else I do must aspire to that. While I was at that work the world gained with every move I made, and I harmed nothing. — Wendell Berry

There must be no compromise with slavery - none whatever. Nothing is gained, everything is lost, by subordinating principle to expedience. — William Lloyd Garrison